A NATION AT WAR: AID WORKERS; In Afghanistan, Helping Can Be Deadly

He stands out in the party photo on a United Nations worker's office wall because of his brilliant smile and engaging looks. Ricardo Munguia, the Red Cross water engineer from El Salvador who was pulled from his car and shot dead by a suspected Taliban group just over a week ago, is sorely missed here among the dwindling community of foreign aid workers and their Afghan staff.

But his killing has shined a stark spotlight on the increasingly dire circumstances around delivering aid to southern Afghanistan, where the United States military continues to wage war against Taliban remnants.

It has also revealed deep unease among aid workers about the dangers they face, and frustration that because of the killing many aid programs will be cut or curtailed, delaying the long-term development that is considered essential to restoring Afghanistan's stability.

There is resentment, too, toward the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, which, some aid workers say, has played down the gravity of their predicament.

To those here, Mr. Munguia's death was particularly chilling because the men who killed him clearly knew he was a worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross, not the American military.

Before they killed him, one of Mr. Munguia's attackers pulled up his baggy trousers and showed off an artificial limb received from a Red Cross workshop in Pakistan, said a Red Cross official, quoting an Afghan staff member who saw the killing.

Afghan and foreign officials say Mr. Munguia's killing was both random and calculated. He was unlucky to be traveling a road that the gunmen had chosen to block. Yet his death appears to have been specifically ordered.

A witness, Abdul Salam, 40, a government military commander, was held up by the same group of gunmen that morning in Dar-e-Noor in northern Kandahar province.

''They took us into a narrow gully that was hidden from the road,'' he said. Soon after, they brought Mr. Munguia and made him stand apart for about an hour. By the end there were several dozen Afghans detained, he said.

Mr. Salam asked the gunmen who they were. ''They told me they were starting operations against foreigners and the new government,'' he said. They listed their commanders, who were all former Taliban leaders, he said.

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Then they called their commanders on a satellite telephone. ''We have arrested Afghans and one foreigner, what should we do?'' he heard them say. One relayed the orders as he received them. ''Kill the foreigner and release the Afghans and tell them this is their last chance,'' Mr. Salam said.

The gunmen marched Mr. Munguia back to the road, where they shot him in the head and pumped 20 bullets into his back. They fled in hijacked cars, leaving him on the road in the mud.

The killing has sent a deep chill through the ranks of aid workers here. This week there were only a few dozen foreigners left in town. Many nongovernmental organizations have evacuated their foreign staff members, and a number of people have resigned or been relocated, aid officials said.

So far the Red Cross itself has pulled its staff back to Kabul while it revises its operation countrywide. During a brief visit to Kandahar on Wednesday, Pierre Wettach, head of the delegation in Afghanistan, said the Red Cross would not resume field activities in Kandahar for months, at least until it is known precisely who killed Mr. Munguia and why.

An exodus of the foreign aid community will inevitably hamper assistance. The concern in southern and eastern Afghanistan, in particular, is that if assistance falls, the Pashtuns who live there will feel increasingly alienated from the central government.

That could ultimately drive them into the arms of a regrouping Taliban or fundamentalist leaders, like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who have called for a holy war against the American presence here and the government of Hamid Karzai.

Such a development could divide the country once more and interrupt important steps in the political reconstruction ahead, like passage of a new constitution by a national assembly in October and nationwide elections in June next year.

The United Nations has banned foreign staff from traveling outside the city for a second week but nevertheless insists it will carry on normal operations.

''The N.G.O. community is very disturbed by the happenings, but on a certain level this is Afghanistan and there was always a possibility of certain things happening,'' said Ahmed Munier, United Nations deputy mission chief in Kandahar. ''Only if an incident like the killing of Mr. Munguia became the norm, would the U.N. pull out.''